Fans of The Bold and the Beautiful star Alley Mills (Pam Doulas) have a beautiful project to look forward to. The actress is set to star in an emotional film titled Last Chance Charlene, and it's the first project that she's felt able to take part in since last year's death of her longtime husband, Orson Bean (ex-Harrison Logan, One Life to Live).
Last Chance Charlene stars actress Allison Ewing as the title character, a writer/actress who desperately tries to put her complicated life back together and make a break in her career after her brother, Dominick, dies by suicide. The project was written and directed by Tony Gapastione, who left his full-time job as a pastor three years ago to become a filmmaker.
Mills spoke with Climate about joining the film as Charlene and Dominick's mother, Lorenna. "I lost my husband last year, so it's the first thing I've said 'yes' to, just because it's kind of about that," she shares. "Different things have meaning to me and I can pick and choose what I damn well please. And I read this and thought, 'I want to do it.'" The actress also shares that she "loved that [the writer and director] is a pastor. That kind of piqued my interest."
Interestingly, fans have B&B to thank for Mills even knowing about Gapastione's film. The former pastor reveals that the CBS soap's actor, Jeremy Valdez (Detective Alex Sanchez), also stars in Last Chance Charlene and was the one who convinced Mills to read the script.
"The business is really all about those relationships," Gapastione says. "If I had sent my script cold, who knows where that would have gone... But because she knows Jeremy and loves Jeremy, she said she'd read it. She read it within two days and got back to me."
Though the film mostly centers on Charlene, Mills's character has her own difficult journey in the story. A longtime church secretary, Lorenna is overwhelmed by her son's death and is devastated when the family's pastor tells her that he can't honestly say in the memorial service that Dominick went to heaven.
"So, I'm in the midst of a faith crisis, too," Mills says of her character, who is running on fumes. "It's like everything at one time. And then trying to get my daughter back on her feet cause she's not on her feet. She's left her husband and she's just flailing."
Last Chance Charlene has finished production, and Gapastione hopes to get the film edited in time to apply for the Sundance Film Festival in September. "It feels so good to see it all coming to light and all the people come out to help," he shares. "It's a pretty cool dream."
For more information about Last Chance Charlene and how to attach yourself to the film as a fundraiser and/or producer, click here.
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